


The Morning After the Night Before

by prittyspeshul



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: M/M, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Polyamory, So much drinking, but only one featured, paige is an instigator, why is everyone always hungover in my stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prittyspeshul/pseuds/prittyspeshul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Roman is smug about his ability to drink and takes part in an ill-advised bet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Morning After the Night Before

Roman Reigns was a little bit vain about his ability to handle liquor.

Granted, most of it came from his substantial size—he was not a small man—but he still enjoyed a tinge of pride when he would see his friends the next morning, shambling like zombies, pounding coffees and Excedrin like candy, generally bitching and moaning, while he was bright-eyed, well-rested, and an all-around smug little beam of sunshine whose face everyone else far from quietly wanted to smash into the floor. 

So, really, he was far overdue for a comeuppance.

And what a comeuppance it was, he thought with a grimace, slowly coming to terms with the steady thudding that he eventually identified as his heartbeat. He couldn’t quite figure out why it was in his temples, but that was a mystery for another time, like when his brain wasn’t alternating between bashing against his skull and trying to ooze out through his ears, or when he wasn’t fairly positive the room was spinning even though he could feel himself laying very stationary on the bed. It was unfairly disorienting. His entire body ached like he’d been in the ring with Lesnar, and his arms in particular felt positively leaden.

He swallowed once and wished he hadn’t; his throat was dry to the point of serious discomfort, and it was a struggle to force his Adam’s apple up and down. For a moment, he wondered why he was awake at all when he had been so much happier drowning in dreamland, and he decided he was going to risk looking for a clock. It was a risk that had no reward, as it turned out, because simply opening his eyes drove sharp, stabbing needles of pure agony into them. Light _hurt_. Like, really, really, a thousand power-bombs off the apron directly into his optic nerve hurt. He chuckled gruffly to himself, checking the sound almost as soon as it rasped from his dry throat; a thousand may have been an exaggeration. _More like a hundred_.

He took a moment to collect himself, deciding against his better judgement to attempt to remember exactly what had happened to land him in this predicament. He remembered leaving the arena with a group of performers and heading to a local bar; something… wavering…

_The group was clustered at a booth in the corner of the bar, Roman sandwiched between Seth and Dean, Cesaro and Paige clustered at the end of the seat next to Dean, Dolph with Lana practically in his lap teetering precariously next to Seth. They were all laughing, in great spirits after the match and in great spirits after imbibing quite a few; they’d been here for a few hours already, and everyone had a few drinks in them, even the normally reserved Antonio. Dolph suddenly slammed his hand on the table and pointed at Roman. “This fucker,” he managed, only slurring his words a tiny bit, “this fucker here, thinks he can out drink all of us—what do you say to that, guys?”_

_There was a burst of laughter, in large part from Roman, but the tiny blonde wrestler insisted, “No, he does. See, he’s got—four—five—”_

_“Six,” a giggling Lana supplied, helpfully, and Dolph grinned sloppily and kissed her face, mostly missing her mouth._

_“Six, and all of us have only had four. He thinks he’s better’n us, boys! Ladies, excuse me, but I would appreciate if you remained alive, so I excuse you from my next sentence. Men, I propose we catch up and keep up with Mr. Big Tough in the corner for the rest of the night!”_

_Dean and Seth didn’t need much cajoling, the alcohol having blissfully wiped their collective memories of the last time they tried to go drink for drink with the larger man, but the Swiss bowed out with a charming smile, cheekily hinting, “I’m already on thin enough ice at home, I don’t need to bring them out to the emergency room tonight.” All three of the more foolhardy boys chorused some well-meaning grouches at him, but backed down pretty quickly when he followed his initial denial with the zinging, “I’ve got two beautiful people in my bed at home. I don’t need to drink to prove my manhood to anyone.”_

_Roman was still chortling at the suddenly sobered looks on all three of the other men’s faces before they all fairly slunk off to the bar, and he was feeling the effects enough to leer a little too long at the twin denim-clad asses of his former teammates (on glorious display as they were when both men leaned just so against the bar) before he was smushed between Paige and Antonio, whose expressions were positively lecherous._

_“We need you to settle something for us, dear,” the English woman began, eyes gleaming with a practically unholy light. Behind her, Lana was nursing a drink and grinning._

_“Yes, see, we’ve got sort of a bet going on as to which one of your teammates you took to bed first,” the man continued, his smirk far too feline to suit Roman._

_“I’m not sure what you’re—”_

_“Oh, cut the shit, dude. You’ve got the hots for both, and they’re no help at all! They just wave us off!” Paige was much more passionately invested in this than he was sure he was comfortable with. “Cesaro thinks Seth—”_

_“My money’s on Dean,” Lana cut in, and Cesaro choked on the beer he had just finished, eyes bulging at the matter-of-fact way the Russian had intervened. After they were sure he was going to survive, the dark-haired diva continued, “I personally think you all three just wound up in bed together. So which was it?”_

_Roman’s eyebrows had crept up into his hair by this point, and he stared each of the three shameless individuals at his table. To their credit, not a single one so much as quailed, and he finally buried himself in finishing his beer._

_“So what does that mean?” she cried, exasperated, and the Samoan was exceedingly glad at that exact moment for two things: the dark skin of his heritage, which was highly resistant to blushing; and the noise level of the bar, which was approximately just below “fucking deafening” and which virtually guaranteed that no one beside their table could hear anything that was happening. He mumbled something into his empty glass, setting it down on the table with a decided clink. Paige took a moment to decipher his words before she audibly gasped (which was saying a lot for her volume) and slammed her fist down on the table._

_Stage whispering would have been a misnomer for what she did just then—her voice was at the level of Cena calling his spots during a match. “Does this mean you three haven’t—”_

_“Roman,” and Cesaro’s voice and expression were pained, “you—and your lovely teammates—have not yet—”_

_“NO,” the Samoan roared, feeling his ears go red, because how the fuck did these three, of all people, manage to pinpoint in less than three minutes the fact that was the current shame of his existence? Yes, he was desperate for one—or both (and if he was honest with himself, it was definitely both)—of his partners, but he, the almighty Roman, the Fabio of the WWE, could not get up the courage even to approach either of them about it, let alone begin to attempt consummation of that desire. He grabbed one of the not-totally-empty pitchers of beer on the table and downed what was left in a swig; when he finally looked up, Paige, Cesaro, and Lana were staring at him with equal measures of empathy and childish glee._

_“… what? You gonna mock me now?”_

_“No,” Paige said decisively, and the smile growing on her lips matched Antonio’s and Lana’s in unsettling intensity, “We’re going to cut you in on the bet.”_

_Thankfully (or perhaps not so much), the three returned from the bar at that second, and Roman proceeded to make it very difficult for the rest of the group to keep pace with him by downing the entire tray of shots Dolph held in quick succession._

Ten drinks. He had ten drinks last night. No wonder he felt like absolute garbage today. After the tray of shots, everything got fuzzier until it eventually blurred away into blackness, but he fixated on one thing: Dolph, Seth, and Dean had been trying to keep up with him, and he remembered as though through a heavy filter the three others doing shot after shot after shot...

“Fuck,” he shouted, sitting straight up. Or attempting to, at least. Three things happened immediately after he yelled: one, he regretted the noise with every bone in his body, down to the tiny bones of his inner ear (especially with those); two, he realized that he couldn’t sit up, because there were two very solid weights on his arms, and that was why they felt so heavy; and three, two exceedingly familiar and hungover voices made incoherent noises of distress. His instinct at being confined was to thrash, but when his arms met soft, warm resistance on both sides, coupled with more noises, he lay very, very still and breathed very, very slowly.

It was there, all right: the unmistakably familiar scents of baby powder and pomegranate (what adult male used Herbal Essences?) that meant Seth and the smoky cedar and leather (it was almost cliché, really) that meant Dean, tangled deliciously together with a trace of whiskey and a hint of sweat, and almost against his will Roman opened his eyes and looked down, into two bleary pairs of eyes, one brown and crowned with a glorious rumpled crop of black-and-blonde waves, above a full pout, the other blue and almost hidden by blonde-red wispy curls, above a quirked grin.

He didn’t know how to react, really, but judging from the sudden disturbed expressions of both of the occupants of his bed, laughter wasn’t appropriate.

“whassa matter, Ro,” Seth finally slurred, followed by Dean’s raspy, “why you laughin,” and it was too much when they noticed the other and each blinked stupidly; Roman was basically in tears now, laughing in total shock and abandon, because here they all were. He withdrew his arms from under each of the warm weights he now recognized too well as his teammates’ bodies, rubbing his eyes until separate pairs of hands wrapped around tan forearms and pulled, until he was staring into the same pairs of eyes so equally full of consequence and equally full of worry that it set off another round of laughter. After a moment, and what felt like a shrug from the Dean side, both bodies squirmed closer (and that was definitely Seth’s thigh crossing over his and his foot rubbing lightly against his calf, like it was definitely Dean’s arm draping across his chest and his fingers settling into the nape of his neck and toying with the strands of hair there), forcing themselves under his arms until he had to drape one around each of them.

His laughter subsided in short order, only to burst forth again in fits and spurts as he described circles on each of the muscular backs under his fingers. He could feel Seth practically purring under the ministrations, mouthing soft, warm kisses that began to spike in intensity along his neck, while Dean simply pressed closer and began dragging the blunt nails of his hand along his chest, catching and toying with the nipple. Roman thought he might actually melt when Dean’s mouth joined Seth’s, and the last fuzzy thought he formed before his brain was replaced with an altogether much more enjoyable form of blankness than his hangover was, _I owe Paige fifty bucks_.

(A day later, when she saw the edge of a hickey peeking up from Dean’s collar and the very telltale rings around Seth’s wrists, she approached him with a grin and an outstretched hand. Cesaro and Lana grilled him later, and he was pretty sure from their avid interest in the story that they weren’t particular upset about losing.

As for when he had to explain to his partners why the English diva couldn’t look at them without laughing… well, that was an entirely different exchange.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have a serious investment in the idea of a polyamorous Cesaro with Natalya and Kidd. It’s too damn cute.
> 
> I’m aware Lana is not actually Russian and is not in an actual relationship with Dolph, but it fit the story better.
> 
> Comments and criticism are greatly appreciated; my comedy needs some work, and I welcome pointers. 
> 
> Why is everyone always hungover when I write things?


End file.
